Green considerations took a back seat during the global financial crisis, as businesses throughout the supply chain battled for survival. But with the world economy now in recovery, they are once again gaining in popularity with governments and consumers alike.
Governments and policy makers are increasingly dictating how businesses should manage their environmental impact by imposing more and more stringent carbon emissions targets. Ensuring compliance with these regulations is particularly important for businesses operating in markets where failure to comply carries punitive damages and for those involved in international trade where the risk is extrapolated by local legislation in each country that goods pass through.
Globalisation has seen extended supply chains become prevalent, with an ever-increasing number of trading partners involved across more countries, making the task of tracking carbon footprint impossible without an effective software solution in place.
Kewill is one such company that provides customers with a technology platform that supports the development of sustainable supply chains by measuring and reporting on CO2 emissions.
Why is sustainability so important?
Manufacturers who focus on sustainability and reducing carbon footprints find that it drives efficiency and cost savings. As ‘green’ considerations have gained in popularity among governments and consumers, manufacturers are also increasingly looking to gain a level of ‘green’ credibility in the marketplace on the back of these initiatives. But there are more reasons from an operational standpoint.
Civil unrest and instability in the world’s most oil-rich regions have created significant fuel cost volatility, which has acted as a wake-up call for many involved in logistics in particular. This has also spurred governments and supply chain businesses alike into action around multimodal transportation strategies that are more energy efficient.
Increasingly, Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) are expected to share information on CO2 emission for goods they transport with their manufacturing customers, partly through impending regulatory changes and partly through an increased demand from manufacturers and their retail customers. This will increasingly become a competitive differentiator for LSPs in contract negotiations and will require them to become more sophisticated at gathering and analysing the relevant supply chain data, and formatting it into meaningful information that can be shared to paint a whole picture of manufacturers' overall supply chain impact.
In order to successfully navigate the risks and impacts of unsustainable supply chains, businesses need to ensure that they are gathering accurate supply chain data that enables them to better understand environmental impacts and drive change. Supply chain execution tools like the Kewill MOVE multimodal transportation platform, allow business leaders to collate, analyse and understand this data. This enables manufacturers and their logistics partners to work collaboratively to develop sustainable supply chains and comply with environmental regulations and reporting requirements.